To create the foundation for this project's animated background, you'll start with the Sonic Loop composition, which also serves as the pulsing letter O in the finished movie: 1. | Create a new composition named Radar_background, using the NTSC D1 Square Pix, 720x540 preset, with Duration 15;00 seconds.
| 2. | Drag the Sonic Loop composition to the Radar_background Timeline at time 0;00, and change the layer's Scale to 200.0, 200.0.
| 3. | Duplicate the layer four times so you have five layers total.
| 4. | Go to time 0;10, select all the layers, and press P. Set the layers' X Position values to 0, 180, 360, 540, 720, to distribute the layers evenly across the entire width of the composition.
Distributing the layers along the X axis The Sonic Loop layers in formation | 5. | Stagger the layers' In points by five frames from time 0;00 to time 0;20 so they first appear at different times. For example, we set the In Point of layer 1 to 0, of layer 2 to 0;10, of layer 3 to 0;05, of layer 4 to 0;20, and of layer 5 to 15.
| 6. | Select all the layers, and pre-comp (Layer > Pre-Compose) them. Name the composition radar_5across.
| 7. | Duplicate the radar_5across layer four times for a total of five layers.
| 8. | Select all the layers, and press P. Set the layers' Y Position values to 0, 135, 270, 405, 540, to distribute the layers evenly across the entire height of the composition.
| 9. | Stagger the layers' In points by five frames from time 0;00 to time 0;20 so they first appear at different times. For example, we set the In Point of layer 1 to 0, of layer 2 to 0;10, of layer 3 to 0;05, of layer 4 to 0;20, and of layer 5 to 15.
If you preview the animation, you should see pulsing circles appear at different points in time. They fill the entire composition and continue pulsing in and out.
| 10. | Close the Radar_background composition, and open the Sonic Promo composition.
| 11. | Drag the Radar_background composition to the Timeline at time 0;00, and set the layer's Opacity to 25%.
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